


I See A Lady, I See A Man

by NoMartiniNoParty



Category: Strictly Come Dancing RPF
Genre: F/M, Strictly Final, fixed it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-27
Packaged: 2021-03-11 23:13:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 13,122
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28750506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NoMartiniNoParty/pseuds/NoMartiniNoParty
Summary: I went back and reworked time, so they could have the Final they deserved. We begin in Week 8, with a Rumba to follow their Waltz...(This is a work of fiction and I am not affiliated with any of the names or people mentioned in any way)
Relationships: Giovanni Pernice/Ranvir Singh
Comments: 36
Kudos: 35





	1. A Rumba, pt. I

‘Just wait and be hopeful. I was hopeful. Though maybe that’s what I had wanted all along. To wait forever.’

\- A. Aciman

She stood appraising the two mannequins side by side. Bronze and black. His was fine - more than fine, in fact. Sheer black shirt, hanging open provocatively. She loved this about their dances. They were always walking on to the floor as if they had just been somewhere, as if the story had already begun away from everyone else's prying eyes. 

There was metallic detailing around his collar - a little bronze, almost unnoticeable, that echoed her dress. Her dress. Very much _not_ unnoticeable. She shivered a little and heard him swallow next to her, walking forwards and running his hand along the bodice, causing the beads to shimmer and sway, gold and bronze flickering. She had discovered that he always spoke his mind to the costume department. If something wasn’t right, he would tell them, ask for changes. The Argentine skirt needed to be less restrictive, the slit to go higher. _Higher_ , he had said. _To top of the thigh._ She watched his brow crease as he curled two fingers under the beaded fringing. 

There really was a change as soon as her costume went on. She had caught her reflection in the fitting room mirror, saw the mischievous expression on her own face. Were those the same eyes that had widened, deer-like, on first seeing the dress sat innocently on its mannequin yesterday morning? How could they be?

The Rumba. She had longed for this, and dreaded it. What was the Rumba? The hardest dance to learn, everyone said. The memory of his voice rang in her ears. _We are challenging ourselves with the Cha-Cha-Cha, darling._ That felt like a lifetime ago. And this was even harder, like a slower, sexier Cha-Cha.

'It’s not simple. It looks it, but it’s not. There are layers to it,' she said to him one evening.  
'Well, yeah. It’s the dance of love,' he replied, looking her right in the eye. 

His choreography made their Rumba neither a fight nor a truce; it wasn’t a simple hello or a complicated goodbye, it wasn’t clean-cut like others she had seen. In all the years of watching on TV, Rumbas had appeared like rare birds, sought-after and savoured by judges and viewers alike. She hadn’t told him, but sometimes, after training, instead of going to sleep, she would go back and watch his old dances, languishing in the self-loathing that came with comparing their week’s progress with the same dance done with his previous partners. When she was feeling merciful on herself, she would watch the ones she loved just for fun. The way he moved… it was impossible. Unique. Unlike anyone else. Technically perfect, but there was something else too. There was a movement he did, she didn’t know what it was called, where he pistoned his arm back to get enough momentum to spin her. Something about that move and the expression on his face undid her. Maybe that’s when it began. 

The fact remained that she had always loved his dancing. That much she knew to be true, no matter what had happened this year. It was thrilling and entirely strange to watch this person, someone she suddenly knew so well, back when he was someone she hadn’t known at all.

Just one more video, then, she told herself, climbing into bed. And then one more after that, and another after that...

_Rumba Debbie Giov_

Click. 

Beautiful, a tribute to her late husband, a dance in dedication. A lease of life through dance. Romantic in the purest sense of the word. A ballerina. She wondered who had chosen the song, him or the producers. 

_Rumba Michelle Vis_

Click. 

Silver moonlight on lovers about to part. Gorgeous singing. _Too good at goodbyes._ She felt a distant flip of fear somewhere in her stomach at that line, but couldn’t place it - and then the dance ended, and the cheers and claps and theme song cut in, stealing the moment away. She hated that, in a way. The cheers and the claps and the comments and the competition. They were why she was here, but they felt like distractions too. She just wanted to dance, forever. They trained everyday to make Saturday wonderful, she knew that. So why did it feel as though Saturday was, instead, the way back to Monday? The way back to a rehearsal room with a jacket thrown over the arm of a sofa, with a half-empty bottle of water sat on the side, with pale morning light flooding across the floor and the shadow of a man getting closer and closer to her until there is no distance left between them at all? 

She blinked, up from a trance. It was late. One more, though…

_Faye Tozer Rumba_

Click.

Gold sparks rained down on a gorgeous figure. The audience lost in blackness, no one else in the room but that woman in silhouette. Barely-there spotlights, barely-there dress. Then, suddenly, him, _him_ , slow, strong, entirely sure of himself. When they touch, her breath catches. 

There was something both thrilling and terrifying about the expression on his face as he danced that dance. He looked like a wolf. Did she want him to look at her that way? What would she do if he did? 

\- - - - - 

‘Now, we’ve seen one Rumba already this evening, and we’re about to see another. Could this semi-final be any more of a treat?’ There was a smile in Tess’ voice. 

Her pulse quickened. She could feel him just behind her, even though they weren’t touching. He was uncharacteristically still.

‘After HRVY and Janette’s gorgeous snowglobe scene, let’s see what Ranvir and Giovanni have in store.’ 

The slightest movement of his hand raised to her waist, weight gently moving from one leg to another. _Please, don’t move that hand,_ she thought. _I need that hand there._

The VT faded in on the monitors above.

_This week we have two dances, and this could not be any more different from the Waltz. It’s intimate, and it has to be completely real, otherwise it just won’t work._

_**Rumba is slow, is sensual, is the dance of love, but is a very technical dance. She need to control the weight, the balance, but most important, she need to trust me.**_

It was surreal to see their week captured in a video - what was included, what was left out. As if everything that went on could possibly be captured in a montage. She smiled in spite of herself. The editors had gone for a theme again, similar to the Argentine VT. Swooning music, a clear narrative, a rich, burnished filter over them as they moved in each other’s arms. There wasn’t anywhere to hide in training this week. They barely moved across the floor. She wondered if the camera people cared that she had been trembling the entire time they were filming - cared, or even noticed at all. 

Less than a minute to go. They moved through the darkness onto the dance floor. Twenty seconds. Ten...

These moments - they existed in a different plane to the rest of time. It was as though normal life had ceased to exist, had never existed, or no longer mattered. How could dancing do this? Make you feel like heaven had reached down and given you a tiny piece of something sublime? They had practised this dance a hundred times, and it would never be enough. _Again_ , he would say. _Again_. Over and over. And she didn’t complain, couldn’t complain. How had she ever complained about this? About _this_ , this miraculous thing that two bodies could do and that stopped time and transported her to a place she had never known and couldn’t believe she had been allowed to go? Her feet didn’t hurt, her back didn’t ache; and if it did, she no longer remembered what pain felt like. All she could feel was the gaze of a man half-hidden in shadow, the palest golden spotlight illuminating his slender fingers and the side of his jaw and the look in his eyes, a look which terrified her and thrilled her in equal measure. 

They began.


	2. A Rumba, pt. II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Pick your music...

‘He is not dancing with her, he is making love to her. And she knows it.’

\- unknown

She took a breath and held it deep down inside her body. Darkness stretched all around her. A single sheer, floating curtain hung from the ceiling rig, and there was nothing else but a pool of faint golden light in the middle of the dance floor, and, on the other side of it, a man. A man she had been impressed by and afraid of, and who had come to mean something to her she couldn’t put into words. They locked eyes, and stepped towards each other. 

Usually, he put her in the spotlight first, but this was different. They were approaching each other on equal ground, each stepping out of the shadows. The lamps that lined the floor were casting soft beams upwards, and suddenly the room was empty except for the two of them.

All week, in her head, when she tried to sleep and when she woke, she had heard his voice. _Straight the leg. Flex. Straight. Hip. Arms. You are always moving. Has to be flowing, has to flow, smooth_. But now? No voice. No sound other than the music. The first few bars, sultry, slow, undeniably sensual. Rumba was a rhythm dance. She would need to be one with the music and with the man she was about to touch. There was no turning back. 

She could feel electricity in her legs and in her arms; she was moving without knowing how. Suddenly he was there, right in front of her, and without breaking eye contact he closed his hand firmly around hers, pulling her into his embrace. She resisted, hands pressed against his chest where his gauzy shirt hung open, spinning away before he pulled her back again, pressing their hips together. Her arms were right around him; his arm flowed up above them in a beautiful arc. Beautiful - he was beautiful. She had tried to tell him so that week, but he shook it off, turning away with a flush crawling up his neck. 

Even though he was leading, she felt powerful. They swayed left, right, back and forth, hips against hips. Slowly, she drew her eyes up to meet his. She spoke to him, but not with her voice. He answered. 

She almost faltered - almost. Focus. _You know the steps, stop panicking about the steps_. She did know the steps. The steps weren’t what worried her. 

Her heart skipped as warm fingers grazed her thigh, brushing the beaded fringing aside. Her dress swayed as she swayed, the gold and bronze shimmering in the low lamplight. His shirt was rough underneath her palms. Sweat, already. 

She spun away; he pulled her back to him. Again she spun away, fanning out, and she saw his arm flow like the most beautiful swell of the sea, movement rippling through his whole body, and then felt another touch; his hand gripping hers, strong, tugging her back to him, always back to him, and he spun her with such force that her breath caught in her throat. Once, twice, faster, until she slammed hard into him, her back to his chest. A beat. Then, light fingers sweeping her bobbed hair to the side to expose even more of her neck. She felt his breath there. She knew what he thought of that neck. This week, it was on display to everyone. 

Sway, flow, curl. Another rest in the rhythm, where he had said they were allowed to express themselves. _You can roll your shoulder, or hip, or look at me. I want you to look at me_. There was no distance left between them. He was touching her in every place it was possible to be touched. She didn’t know it was possible to be this close to someone, where you couldn’t tell where they ended and you began. He was warm, that she knew, and there was a strength in the way he was holding her that made her feel like her knees would give out at any moment. She slipped into a backwards bend, further than the Foxtrot, further than the Viennese, and he followed her down. She felt his lips brush past the neckline of her dress before he pulled her desperately back into him, and when she looked into his eyes, what she saw there scared her. It was not the look she had seen in the videos of his other Rumbas, nor any of their rehearsals. It was not a look she had ever seen in his eyes before. 

She was hitting every beat, but every moment passed in a haze; all she felt were his fingers as they brushed her hair and his breath against her throat. Heat. _Again. Again_. She closed her eyes and tilted her neck, feeling how well they fit together like it had been designed by some higher power. The hand that had been curled around her waist slid down, below her belly button, and just before her breath audibly caught, he lifted it, sliding her arm up with his, his muscles tensed under bare skin. He brought their arms back across her chest, and with one finger tilted her jaw towards his. 

She wasn’t afraid anymore. _More_. She took control, moving powerfully, curves, sways, hips, hands. Gold sparks showered down from the ceiling as the music hit a crescendo. She stroked his jaw and slid down his shoulders, and in one strong move he spun her to face the darkness and lifted her, and it was almost like the Argentine, but smoother, _lower_. He had one hand on the inside of her thigh and his face pressed into the back of her neck. She responded by sliding her foot slowly up the outside of his leg, up and down. He pressed into her, and then span her to face him one final time, and it _was_ like the Argentine, except it was worse, much worse, because she had seen the look in his eyes and he had surely seen the one in hers, and she could feel his pulse when she slid her thumb across his throat, and his fingers were gouging a hole in her dress. 

Then, it was over. 

Neither of them moved as the lights came up. The wildness was still in his eyes, and she felt like sobbing, because something was happening, but she had no idea what it was.


	3. It Takes Two - Week 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I took snippets and flavours from previous ITTs. Then went off on one...

‘To look up and find you there. For the day will soon come when I will look up, and you’ll no longer be there.’ 

\- A. Aciman

‘They lit up the dance floor with a world-class waltz and had us riveted with that raunchy Rumba, and the viewing public just could not get enough. And to be honest, neither could I. I could watch these two dance all night - and I’m in luck, because we’re going to see them do not just one, not just two, but THREE more dances when they light up our screens in the final next week. Give it up for our movie star couple, it’s Ranvir and Giovanni!’

The camera didn’t quite catch their fingers brushing slightly as they stepped up to the sofa, and neither did Zoe. As their waltz played on the screen, he thought of all that was different this year. No studio audience in the ballroom, nor here on It Takes Two. He missed the atmosphere an audience brings, but couldn’t help wondering what would have happened if this year had played out differently. Would his breath catch at the slightest graze of a dress against his hand? What if the season had been full length; they would only be halfway through. Would they have made it further? Would she have been able to perform the way she had in a room full of people? What if he hadn’t had her to himself so entirely? Would they still have had that conversation? A seed of panic flourished in his stomach. Would they be sat here now, so close they were melding together? Would she have liked the old him, the one who hadn’t known such intense loneliness as that which settled on him this past spring? Would he have found the courage to let their narrative unfold the way it had if things had been different? Would she have changed? Would he? Or would he have been one and the same person still? And what if she had been given another partner, hadn’t been pushed and nudged and held the way he had pushed and nudged and held her? Would she have continued to live her life as normal, never knowing the dancer that lived inside her? The thoughts threatened to overwhelm him. How could he possibly begin to tell her how he felt? He could not even find the words in his own language, let alone speak them aloud in hers. 

All of this happened in the space of a moment, then Zoe was looking right at them, expectant. Zoe, bubbly and beautiful as ever. Not for the first time, he thought of the beacon of joy that this show was to people who needed it now more than ever. 

He stole a glance at her before looking at the screen. She was watching their waltz. He allowed himself just the beginning of a smile - she was getting better and better at watching herself perform. There was a moment in the waltz he had watched again and again since Saturday night; it was just as the second verse came in, and the ballroom was flooded with a swell so magnificent that he thought he might crumble right there on the floor as they span around and around. It was the pivot from the Viennese, elevated until they were floating through the sky. They had left earth just then, had left everyone behind and gone to a place only dance could take them. He had been there alone many times, but had never taken anyone with him - not really. If he had looked down at her, he would have seen her closed eyes, an expression of complete, rapturous trust flooding her face. Lost in a dream.

He wanted to show her that she was a princess - not just tell her, _show her_. And he had done it: when they danced, they were no longer in London, but in an old palazzo somewhere in southern Italy, with snow falling in front of the moon outside and the night dark as ink. Just as all the guests tripped to their waiting carriages, he had stolen her away to an empty, cavernous ballroom, where a single candelabra glowed with the light of a thousand suns above their heads. She stood at the top of the steps with a hesitant expression that made him lightheaded. He extended his hand, waiting. That hand belonged to her, and he would have waited an eternity for her to take it. 

They say the transference of any knowledge is an erotic act. Well, then, how would you describe the act of teaching someone to dance? He had given her something, something that transcended normal life and normal language, and she had given him something too, but he couldn’t understand what it was. It came into being when their hands met, when her ribcage hooked on to his hip, when her leg settled against his thigh. As they twirled, he felt as if he no longer had any use for food, for water, or for air. Forever wouldn’t be enough, and they had barely two minutes. And after that? Another two. And after that? If they were lucky, one more week. Just one more week, and it would be over.

\- - - -

‘I mean, that waltz - WOW.’ Zoe’s voice faded in and out. 

She could feel him next to her. For once, she was glad that she couldn’t see his face. He drew in a deep breath and fidgeted. His hands were clasped together in his lap. She wanted to reach out and touch those hands, so much larger than hers; to rub her thumb over the cold, hard metal of his ring, feel it give way to warm, soft skin, trail a fingertip over the dark hair that disappeared under his crisp white cuffs. The skin on the inside of his wrists was a shade paler than the rest of his hands. How could that small patch of skin make her forget that she was on live television? She had run her hands over his bare chest not two days ago in front of eleven million people - there she was, doing it again, on the screen to her right - and yet, now, that small patch of skin felt more troubling than their entire Rumba. 

‘And then, from ballroom to That Rumba, as it will henceforth be known.’

**[laughs under his breath] Aha, _that_ Rumba! That waltz and that Rumba.**

‘Yes, it will be! This week will go down in Strictly history, I am telling you. And that dress, my goodness-’

**[grinning and nodding]**

_‘Oh god, yes, can’t believe I was wearing that.’_

‘But you look fantastic, Ranvir. The journey you have been on - just think, week four, Cha-Cha-Cha, I bet you didn’t even dream you would be capable of pulling this off, and now - in the final baby! I mean, LOOK at that performance!’

_‘Yep.’ [blushes]_

‘You did that!’

_‘We did that. We.’_

**[he squeezes her hand, tucked between their legs, smiling at the floor]**

If she was honest, she had been petrified during the judges’ comments - but not because of what she had just done on live television. They were right - this was not the week four Cha-Cha, and she had come a long way. She felt the man sitting next to her, his presence. Intoxicating. That’s the word she longed to say, to answer when people asked how her Strictly experience was going so far, the word that rolled dangerously near to the edge of her tongue when she woke up in the morning and saw the last message he sent her before she fell asleep. The word that danced around the edges of her mind and traced itself on the space, the ever-diminishing space, between his body and hers. 

They had been pulled from their trance after the Rumba by heckles and cheers. She had stood there, tucked into the crook of his arm while his hand fluttered by her waist before settling in the safer spot on her shoulder. The looks on the judges' faces were embossed in her mind: Craig’s cool detachment with complete understanding hiding just behind; Shirley’s shards of glass coated with sugar; and Motsi, darling Motsi, looking like she was having a magical moment all her own. Everything else was light and blur. 

He hadn’t been able to stop looking at her, but there was hesitation in him too. An awareness. She had threaded her fingers through his, felt the pulse that was still jumping in his wrist minutes after they’d finished. 

Running up the stairs. Running up the stairs in a bronze beaded dress that could barely be called a dress. Claudia had beamed when she laid eyes on them. And when she looked at him, in the monitor or by turning her head to the side and gazing up into his crystal eyes, something swelled behind her belly button and floated up through her chest. Claudia was still speaking - or maybe she had finished? They were due in the social media booth, or maybe they’d already been there and they were in a cab heading home? Or maybe they hadn’t danced yet, or maybe a year had passed and she was waking up on a crisp winter morning and turning her head to see the same crystal eyes gazing into hers. Time didn’t seem to run on tracks anymore. The only thing that mattered was the heat and weight of this man sitting next to her, his thumb tracing small circles over the back of her hand. She took a deep breath and looked up at Zoe’s expectant face. 

_‘To be honest, week four feels like a lifetime ago.’_

‘I bet.’ 

_‘And I think, if we had only had the one dance, if we had only been doing the Rumba this week, I would have struggled more in a way, because I would have been overthinking everything, you know, but because we had the waltz too, there was no time. I just had to come in, get on, and learn it, and just, you know, do it!’_

**‘And as well, you know, I say to her, just the fact that she can go out there, perform that the way she did it, is just fantastic.’**

‘More than fantastic. The judges comments… Motsi said it was slinky and sensual, Craig said your balance was a revelation [cheers from the crew], and Shirley said that while in your Viennese Waltz you had found yourself, in this Rumba you have not only done that, but you have then _given yourself away_ to Giovanni. I mean, these are comments not just on your dancing but on who you become on the dance floor. It’s got to mean a lot.’

_‘It really does, and to hear things like that, as someone who, you know, doesn’t have a background in performance, it’s… do you know, the thing that has surprised me most is - is about myself. Like, it has been a revelation, it’s been a complete revelation that I have something called a ballroom frame, I had no idea what that was or what it would feel like, to dance ballroom, and he said back in the beginning didn’t you, when we did the paso-’_

**[a small smile turns the corners of his lips]**

_‘-that you knew from then I would have a frame.’_

‘You had a frame!’

_‘I had a frame, so he sort of zoned in on that from week one. But the Latin, as you might have noticed, Zoe, is not my strength, so to then do the Rumba after that Waltz as well, which is so, it’s so technical and so formal and kind of stiff - not stiff but, the posture is so different to the Latin dances, and while we were in hold for some of the time in the Rumba-’_

**‘Is different. Is totally different. The Rumba is very difficult dance because yes there is contact between the partner more than the Salsa or the Cha-Cha for example but, is slow, and the balance you need and the poise and the way you ‘old yourself, is different from anything else we’ve done so far. I mean, closest is probably the Argentine Tango-’**

‘Yessss. And we were all happy to see a little bit more of that energy! Vixen!’

**‘She was just mesmerising in that, wasn’t she? It was like a completely different person out there on the floor, and I wanted to… at the beginning of this week she was so nervous because she say, you know, she feel exposed-’**

_‘Embarrassed, actually, I felt embarrassed Zoe -’_

‘Oh, my darling.’

_‘Because it’s so look at me, you know? You’re saying to everyone, don’t listen to me, look at me, look at my body, doing these… things, with this person, these intimate moments that usually, people wouldn’t see, and I think for someone who hasn’t ever been asked to tap into that kind of vulnerability before, in front of a live audience, it all came as a bit of a shock.’_

‘Absolutely. But you did it - there was the Cuban walk, and the swivels, and…’ 

**‘But I always to say to Ranvir, it’s about the performance aspect, and it’s not to mean that we are pretending, like the trappings of ‘acting’ where you are just pretending; performing is about becoming. Is about finding something within your partner, and yourself, feeling the confidence to be able to show how you feel. Is brave, is a very brave thing.’**

‘But that’s what people have fallen in love with, it’s why they love to see the two of you dance together, because there’s - I’m going to get in trouble for saying this, I’ve been on the show for years - but there’s a magic when you two dance together like a lot of people haven’t seen before, and people have really connected with that this year.’

**_[look at each other]_ **

‘They have, honestly. We say there’s chemistry on the dance floor, but sometimes a couple comes along that just seems to take you as an audience member to another place, and it’s an absolute joy to witness, we are so glad to have you in the final.’ 

_‘Aww, thank you. That means a lot, thank you.’_

**‘It’s deserved, she deserve it.’**

‘And speaking of the final [whoops from the crew] - yes, come on! Not just two, but three dances now this week. Now, we’re not going to spoil what they are for you at home-’

**‘Nope! Saturday night, BBC One.’ [nods around at the crew]**

‘But we can say that two of them we will have seen before, yes…’ 

[Zoe winks at the camera as they grin at each other] 

‘Did you have fun choosing your favourite, did it clash with the judges' pick, how did you go about it?’

**_[exchange glances]_ **

**‘We… knew what one we enjoy to do the most, so…’**

_‘Yeah, it was… it was an easy pick, really. We both just… knew which one it had to be.’_

‘And people say, you know, you’ve done them before, but you’ve still got a new dance to learn on top of all that, it’s not week one people, it’s not just one dance to learn-’

_‘That would be a dream wouldn’t it! Remember those days, just once dance in a whole week, easy! Piece of cake!’_

‘Exactly! I imagine it’s been a crazy couple of days, how are you coping Ranvir?’

_‘Coping all right, we’re um… the energy levels are dropping slightly - well mine are, not his, he’s like a machine - but it’s definitely starting to… I’m definitely starting to feel it.’_

**[he smiles at her]**

_‘So yesterday right, we were in frame, and I thought I was alright and then I sort of - collapsed in his - and he had to catch me because I actually would have just gone-’_

‘Whoompf! On the floor!’

**‘No, no, she didn’t collapse, we don’t do that, we don’t let it get that-’**

_‘Not collapse collapse, but I just sort of had to... stop… for a bit longer than usual. He said he could see my eyes were glazing over a bit and at first he thought I was just lost in the dance because these days I’ve usually got my eyes closed when we’re doing ballroom, and it turns out he’s got his eyes closed too, and I’m like what you doing! You’re meant to be teaching me and watching me, but he’s too lost in it and I’m the one that has to tell him when I missed a step!’_

**‘What, no that’s not true, that’s not true!’**

‘He’s meant to be the one teaching you!’

_‘I know right! Putting him out of a job!’_

‘Well, you know, we all saw that fleckerl work…’

_‘Yep, yep! No, but honestly, listen we’ve got three dances this week, like everyone, so even though we’re doing two that we’ve already done, there’s still re-learning involved-’_

‘Of course, yeah,’ Zoe nodded.

_‘… and, I thought I was doing alright, but we’d been at it too long without a break so he just sort of picked me up, sat me down and I found myself eating a family size pack of Wotsits with my head in his lap and I realised I wasn’t coping very well.’_

[The crew erupts in laughter]

‘A cheesy puff, though, it hits the spot sometimes doesn’t it? Now, Giovanni, clearly we aren’t going to get a peep out of you about what dances you’ll be doing, but we can say… showdance! What can you tell us? I mean, it’s got to be satisfying to put this together, if you think back to week one, right at the beginning, the two of you partnered up together, and look at you now. Can you believe what Ranvir has achieved?’

**‘If I think back to week one, she- you really couldn’t walk straight-’**

‘In a dance sense!’

**‘Yeah, yeah, in dance sense, in a dance sense. Your determination and want to improve all the time is just rewarding for me, but I always say, she just improve as a person. To see this change that I’ve seen, this woman growing and allow herself to be happier, to have the confidence and the happiness she really deserve to have in her life, is just more than I could ever ask for on this show. So, this showdance, is going to be the journey. It’s the final so, the technical, yes, is important, and we will dance amazing, but, for me, it’s about the journey and how much she come to trust in me and in herself. To just see her let me lead and let me see so much of herself, it’s just been privilege - been _a_ privilege - so, I try to choreograph a dance that can tell our story together.’**

‘It’s going to be… I’m going to need the tissues, by the way, yep.’

**‘Is going to be emotional, yeah. Is going to be… big.’**

‘Big?!’

**‘Epic.’**

‘Epic!’

**‘And intense, yeah. Is a celebration of what we achieve, so there is mix of styles in there, of course, we really just going to show off what she can do, but, more, just dance together, you know, be together on the floor. We speak about the connection, and it’s strong, the connection between us-’**

_‘It’s incredible.’_

**‘Is strong, is really strong, so, while we here, last week you know, it’s got to be that, it’s got to be just us out there doing that, because it’s all about the connection isn’t it? The connection is everything, our connection is everything.’**

‘Well, you two are an absolute dream and we cannot wait, this is going to be a final you do not want to miss. Ranvir and Giovanni!’

[the crew erupts into cheers again]

**_‘We love you Zoe! We love you!’_ **

‘I love you too my darlings! That’s all for tonight but join me tomorrow when I’m talking to Bill and Oti about their journey and a show-stopping showdance that will surely have the nation on the edge of their seats - look at you two bopping around to the music, what’s he doing? It’s like he’s had too many Smarties - other sweets are available - so join me tomorrow night, 6:30 on BBC Two. Goodnight my lovelies, stay safe!’


	4. Pre-Final Socials

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It broke my heart to see them fifth place in the Final intro :(

bbcstrictly

The #Strictly Final is here!  
Time to see how far our finalists have come since their first dance 🤣😭🥰

128,483 views  
DECEMBER 19, 2020

**That was good, look at you! Love that!**  
_Bit of skirtography for you_  
**Love that!**  
_That’s how I look leaving the house everyday, don’t you?  
That was actually me on the way to rehearsal every day [cackles]_

_I love how you slide in, what an entrance.  
Did you ever worry you were just going to stop mid-slide halfway across the floor? Not slide far enough?_  
**Never.**  
_Have you ever got stuck halfway out on the floor? I bet you have_  
**What I can’t believe it, you think that would happen to me! Come on. You…**  
_[Cracking up at his indignation]_

_Look at you prancing about trying to steal the spotlight_  
**Of course, I’m the matador, I have to take control of you.**  
_Take control of me…  
Hang on what was I then? Was I the... I wasn't the..._  
**_[both pause as, on screen, she runs her hands around his waist]_**

_This song as well_  
**I love this, look at that, it’s powerful**  
_I kind of wish we were doing this one again now_  
**We can dance it again, some point  
Those hands, so fantastic! You are proper Pamela**  
_What?_  
**Pamela, from Spain.**  
_It’s got a bit of flamenco in there hasn’t it?  
The song as well… Beyoncé, what a treat. You did me good, my first week!_  
**[looks at her and laughs]**

_It was at this point I had to start having my ankle in ice, do you remember-_  
**There she is, there’s the frame!**  
_Frame!_  
**That’s when I knew**  
_Then?_  
**That’s when I knew [shaking head]  
she is going to have fantastic frame. And you do. Beautiful.**

_That growl you do at me [laughs] I was terrified when you first did that _  
**[smiling at her]**  
_And there we are! Whaaaa what a moment! Look at that! _  
**Was a moment!**____

_____Did you like Shirley telling you you were a superstar? ‘A superstar doing basic steps’_  
**I am a superstar.**  
_And so modest! He’s just so modest this one, just so humble, so kind, so nice to work with…_  
**[laughing]** _ _ _ _

____ _ _

____\- - - - - -_ _ _ _

____bbcstrictly_ _ _ _

____Our four fab-u-lous Finalists are ready for the night of their lives! Are you? 🙌 #StrictlyFinal_ _ _ _

____11,961 views  
DECEMBER 19, 2020_ _ _ _

____ _ _

Her finger hovered over the heart as she scanned the faces in the photo. Shiny happy faces, all dressed up in silver sparkles, deserving to be where they were. She’d made it all the way to the final without the need to be competitive. He had been, enough for the both of them. There had been a little spark, though - a want to win. _Push_. It was irresistible. And _fun_. If you truly want to win, you can’t be afraid to lose. She wondered how long it would be until she fully understood that lesson. 

She double-tapped the screen. Such a simple act, but one that could have such repercussions. She thought again about her job, the media, this show, this strange journey, unforgettable and enchanting and entirely unreal. What would she do when it was all over? _Week by week, we take it week by week_. She could hear his voice. She could always hear his voice these days. But taking it week by week meant she hadn’t figured out what she would do when all the weeks were up. She thought back to the Sunday before week seven, when she had played cast recordings all day and wondered what he would pick, what she would love to perform. His grinning face, teasing her with it. _There are moments when you’re in so deep, it feels easier to just swim down..._

____She took a deep breath. They looked better in black and bronze._ _ _ _


	5. The Judges' Choice

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The final was going to be one chapter, but who wants this to end so soon?

‘When you least expect it, nature has cunning ways of finding our weakest spot.’

\- A. Aciman

They had been told the judge’s favourite was from as long ago as week three. She couldn’t believe it. 

_You look flabbergasted.  
I still am._

The blue dress. That hair. Those eyes. It was like a fever dream, déjà vu from years ago. Was it really only a few weeks? How could it be?

 _No worries_ , he’d said. _Foxtrot-t. Lovely jubbly. All good. You smashed it. We’ll smash it again._

They ran through it backstage and in the wings. _Heel down, bend the knee_. If only she could see his face. _We don’t look at each other at all!_ It didn’t make any sense. _We do look at each other,_ he had teased. _We do._ She conceded. _A little. Could be more, though._ He just smiled. 

In a rare quiet moment, she found herself looking up ballroom dances, the origins, the meaning of the movements and the choreography. Why were they leaning away? Something about wandering men coming into taverns and brothels after long journeys and finding ladies to dance with, ladies who wanted to dance or needed to dance but who, for some reason, didn’t want to dance too close. In the Tango, the stiff trousers worn by men on horseback meant they couldn’t straighten their legs. 

Could that be true? Surely not for the Foxtrot, so classy and poised. Wasn’t dancing apart simply old-fashioned decorum? Jane Austen, the clavichord and ermine gestures, white muslin falling on tiptoeing slippers. The gasps of matrons when the close hold found its way to debutante balls, when men stepped forwards far enough to squash the ladies’ crinolines. Yul Brynner and Deborah Kerr, a heated gaze and an outstretched arm sliding around a corseted waist. _Like this..._

What was that dance? A fast waltz? A polka? She’d be lying to herself if she said she hadn’t dreamed of doing that with him, him in an open waistcoat and bare feet, her responsible for so much silk that after only two spins she is already breathless from the weight of simply wearing the dress. Breathless from flying around an empty ballroom. Breathless from the complex simplicity of a hand snaking around her ribcage. _Come_ , he would say, and they would move as one. The temperature in the room would slide a few degrees over comfortable and yet feel like the only natural way to live from now on. 

She closed her eyes and he was whispering to her again. _I want you to come close_. Perhaps it had all started then. Or perhaps it had started at the launch show, which felt like a very different kind of dream. Or perhaps in the Italian Garden. Or perhaps years before. Or perhaps it was, still, yet to truly begin.

And the idea that many of these dances had come from the dark edges of town, that they were now being translated in a completely different forum with the underlying meaning slowly getting lost under the glitter… it was thrilling. Dances from brothels. Men and women together in a sweaty room, with absolutely no rules, just instinct. Now, the Argentine was the only one that retained an air of improvisation. The Argentine… 

She knew she shouldn’t, but she found the video. What time was it? 

A single violin and cobbled pavement. It is long past midnight, and the footsteps of a man can be heard crossing a deserted plaza and echoing down glistening lanes. He passes through the shadows carrying a single rose, his intentions shining as sharp as glass in his eyes. Somewhere, not far away, a woman sits by a piano in a lamplit room, waiting...

There was a flash of pain in her knee and she yelped, sliding off the chair and dropping her phone and checking the time and standing up and breathing in and blinking. Foxtrot. _Foxtrot-t_. What time was it? Where was he? Where was _she_? 

\- - - - 

They stood in the wings, listening to the comments from that miraculous week as they played on the monitor. 

_\- SENSATIONAL, wasn’t it! -  
\- Ranvir, darling... FAB. U. LOUS! -  
\- You ARE the Foxtrot... ooh la la! -_

Three dances left, then.

She took her place on the stage, her back to the microphone. He was whispering in her ear, like before, except this time, the hand at the curve of her waist pressed just a tiny bit harder before it moved away, and then he was gone, disappearing down the steps. She felt a flurry of fear - alone, again - but when the trumpets burst into being, a pool of warmth spread throughout her stomach. If there was one dance that belonged to them, it was this one. She turned, and there he was, Cheshire cat grin on his face, arms outstretched, singing to her again, always singing to her. _Making my dreams come true_. She had never met anyone like him. 

_I forgot we were on Strictly_. That’s what everyone had said the first time. When it was over, she had looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and seen something altogether new. And here they were again, gliding around the floor. She had gained a penchant for the dramatic of late, and hated herself for it. Hated how much she had fallen for this, this whole thing, for dancing, how she hadn’t been able to resist it, how she hadn’t wanted to all along but had managed it, until now, until this year when something had happened and she’d been forced to open the box she had long kept locked away. And worst of all, he didn’t even know he was doing it. 

_I don’t perform on demand.  
Oh, you don’t?_

When had he earned the right to make her feel so at ease? And who did he think he was, making her feel like this was how life was supposed to be lived?

Joy shot through with fire and with fear sped through her veins as they approached the final spin. He squeezed her hand, and she ran up the steps, away from him. It felt like a premonition of something that was to come, but she didn’t know what, or how soon. 

Cheers. Screams. Claps. Claudia. Tears. Tens. It was a blur of blue and gold, and all she could think about was the way his hair was parted and the crinkle in his eyes every time he smiled at her. In the social media booth she wanted to fall into his arms, but something held her back. Nothing held him back. He was a flood. 

Colour, dancers, friends, cocktail tables, coffee. Dressing rooms, makeup, grins so wide they hurt her cheeks. Hearts racing. A hand returning to the small of her back, the crook of her arm, against her wrist. A thumb pressed to her pulse, a face too close but not close enough. A whisper in her ear, a whisper that sounded like a grin. _**Showdance.**_


	6. A Showdance

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The song I chose is haunting, but feel free to pick your own. I considered Con Te Partiro and a few Hadestown instrumentals.

_Zwischen immer und nie_. Between always and never. 

\- Paul Celan

They stood in the wings again. Two dances left. This one... this was it. Their showdance. Somehow it felt like the most exposing one of all. 

He hadn’t told her how long he had been planning it. She wasn’t even sure she wanted to know; it felt extremely intimate. The amount of detail he had put into the choreography astonished her. There was ballroom, of course: the sweeping steps of their foxtrot and the pivots of their waltzes, but faster, with more drive, and all week he had danced them like it was the last time he would ever dance again. 

The scenery was to be a surprise - a gift, of sorts, to her. He had told her to watch Kelvin and Oti’s Viennese. Silver stars, silver light pouring through a magnificent window frame. It will be nighttime, he said. Light glimmering on a moonlit lake. Another stolen dance, just like every other one they’d done.

She remembered standing with him in the middle of the dance floor days before as they recorded their opening VT for the final. Standing there, watching their best moments on the screens all around them. Could life get more surreal than this? She felt like she was floating through the sky, like she had left earth and there was nothing but clouds and stars beneath her feet. Moments later: his arm, sliding slow and strong around her shoulders. He pulled her to him, saying nothing. Did it need saying?

They had walked arm-in-arm off into the darkness, grabbed a coffee in silence. Spent time simply being. And now, here they were again, on the edge of the floor. 

The lights dimmed and all eyes went to the monitors. She knew she would cry. 

_\- I have to say, this partnership really works well, I love what you have together -  
\- you two complement each other so well. And I see a lady, I see a man -  
\- I forget the technique -  
\- I have to say, that’s the best female frame -  
\- best footwork on a fleckerl I’ve seen on Strictly -  
\- there’s a strong chemistry between this team for sure -  
\- it’s like a butterfly, a transformation takes place -  
\- it was_ totally _real and_ totally _believable. You told the story so naturally -  
\- what can I say, except: PHENOMENAL -_

_I’m feeling quite emotional, actually. [laughter] We’re here, I can’t quite believe we’re here._

**Showdance! Yesssss! [punches air]**

_So we’ve made it to the final, and we get to create the most magical dance of all: our story, from beginning to end, on Strictly._

**Showdance is celebration - of the journey, of the story, of the dancers. There are no rules. And I get to show off just how much Ranvi has achieve in just nine weeks.**

_There’s some Foxtrot in there, some Viennese Waltz, some Argentine Tango, and some little surprises too._

**_[They appear next to each other on screen]_**

_I didn’t ever expect, coming into this, just how life-changing it would be. And I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done for me, all your kindness…_

**_[her voice cracks, he presses his lips together before leaning down and burying his face in her shoulder]_ **

Everyone clapped as they walked hand-in-hand through the dappled moonlight and mist. She was in opal-white chiffon with swan feathers petaling her hair, and her dress rippled with each step, the layers flowing asymmetrically about her legs. He was in silver-white regalia, stiff regimental wool and crisp black lines, a royal captain from a bygone era or a midwinter night’s dream. 

He let her hand slip from his grasp and stepped away. 

**_Dancing their showdance, Ranvir Singh and Giovanni Pernice!_ **

They turned from each other, looking out into the dark, and the music began to play. 

He had chosen a song by Queen. The producers had tried to change it, as Bill and Oti wanted the same artist, but Freddie was his idol - he had fought, and he had won. Who Wants To Live Forever. The band performed a version with instrumentals so rich they made her heart sing. It was a song she knew vaguely, but which had suddenly taken on a whole new meaning.

The singer’s voice carried through the air like a winter breeze. The lyrics… they were moody, dark, melancholy, but somehow powerful, intense, and resilient. Strong, and exposing; full of trust and sacrifice. A lump grew in her throat as she walked slowly towards him through the mist. His eyes refused to leave hers. 

She slipped her hand into his and fell into frame as the violins swelled up to the sky. It had become the most natural thing in the world to do, to tilt her head back, meet his body with hers. And just like that, they were gone - spinning around the floor through moonlight and silver. She could feel his heart beating against her chest. 

The lights lowered, the violins blending into a pulsing guitar with a bass drum that pounded in the deep. They drew together at the side of the dancefloor, carving ochos and passes through the air, a medley of their Rumba and Argentine. She reached up and slowly pushed the suit jacket off his shoulders, noticing how his tongue ran ever so slightly over his bottom lip. 

His face was a breath away. His hand was on her waist. He tugged, hard, and the silk of her skirt came away to reveal a short silver beaded dress underneath. He threw the silk to the floor. Last week had made her more confident, and Vicky Gill had raised her eyebrows at their suggestions for the showdance costumes. This was a secret dress, a Rumba dress within a ballgown. His hand found her thigh, extending her leg to a perfect point, and gasps rippled around the studio as the singer, with a voice like velvet, sang 

_touch my tears with your lips  
touch my world with your fingertips…_

The music crescendoed and he pulled her back into frame, and before she could breathe they were flying around the floor once again to cheers that almost overwhelmed the orchestra. With one touch of his hand, her dress changed again: hidden panels in the silk bodice flooded downwards and it became a full length gown once more, flowing in her wake as they span towards the band. He was like the wind, lifting her, flying her around the floor, and what was dreaming compared to this? _So dreams do come true._ How could anyone live without this feeling? Had she lived until this?

Then, in a move that she couldn’t quite believe, he led her up the steps in a full pivot, spinning across the stage in front of the musicians and back down in a perfect semicircle.

Tears were flowing down her cheeks as they danced through shadow and light. He was no longer smiling; in fact, he was breaking the rules and looking straight at her as he spun her around, and it was less like their waltz and more like a film from old Hollywood, where two people get lost somewhere other than where they actually are, when all the constraints of time fade, when you don’t need to look where you’re going because all that matters is that pair of eyes looking straight into yours and those fingers firm but soft around yours. 

There was nothing else worth looking at but her. Under the lights, the tear stains on his cheeks were a twin to hers. 

The violins and cellos faded to an echo. She could barely breathe. Cheers and screams filled the room. Johannes was clapping with his arms high above his head, a frown of fierce pride on his face. Dianne was screaming. Clara, Maisie. Gorka pummelled his fists. Aljaz turned and caught Janette's eyes shining a few tables away.

She could feel his breath on her face, his nose against hers. They were in the middle of the floor in a pool of light. His fingers were pressing deeply into her waist as he held the entirety of her in his arms, dipping her still lower and lower and following her down. Their faces met, and a tear dropped from his eye and landed on her cheek.

Move, she needed to move, to walk over to the judges, but every ounce of her being resisted. _Couldn’t she just stay here, spend the rest of her days here?_

She laughed at that line, at the idea of a completely unrelated song coming unbidden into her mind. It was a song that belonged to normal life, to morning car journeys, to sunny afternoons with the radio on, to the life she had had before all this began. Funny, though, how song lyrics that once sounded so wistful and idyllic were now framing her thoughts on a daily basis. 

She reached up and wiped a tear from his cheek. There were smiles on both their faces, relief and disbelief. She had loosened her grip and made to step, but he hadn’t moved. He was still holding her, still smiling, his eyes still sweeping her face. Tears kept falling. He turned and kissed the hand that was against his cheek before pulling them up and looking around at the room, at the people he had long loved and whom she had come to adore. 

They stood arm in arm, as they always had, tucked impossibly close, and she was sure the judges had said nice things, but none of it went in. What did it matter anymore? She ran upstairs, pulling him with her. Claudia. Hugs. Scores, blurred by tears. In the social media booth, they could barely speak. What would there be to show the viewers? Just a sobbing mess and a smaller sobbing mess in his arms.


	7. Their Favourite Dance

‘Those few weeks we had been thrown together, our lives had scarcely touched. We looked the other way; we spoke of everything but. But we’d always known. And saying nothing now confirmed it all the more. We had found the stars, you and I. And this is given once only.’ 

\- A. Aciman

They stood together in the wings, matching in black and red, doppelgängers of that dreamlike week. Closing the show; their first ten. So many milestones. But more than that, the deepening of a bond. _It’s all about the connection, isn’t it?_ That had slipped from his lips during one of their interviews early on in their journey, and he hadn’t been able to forget the truth of it since. 

He had spoken to her so many times about the importance of connection between two dancers. He had mentioned it again and again during the past week, but she had simply nodded and smiled. Perhaps she thought him a concerned teacher reminding his student of what she’d been taught. Or perhaps she thought he was berating her, as if to accuse her of not listening? His heart jolted. It was his job to take care of her, to make sure she arrived on the Saturday night as well-prepared as she could be. Professionalism was his priority. For a while now, he had been repeating that to himself over and over. _Professionalism is the priority_. 

One dance left, then. Just one. Their last dance. _Save the last dance for me_. 

How were they here? Hadn’t they only just stepped off the floor two minutes ago? Had three couples really danced since? He couldn’t remember. Everything was a blur. Keeping track of time had been something that came easily to him, until now. 

Her feathered showdance dress was back on its hanger in their dressing room, next to her normal clothes. He had spoken to Vicky Gill about it after the first fitting. His request had caused Vicky’s eyebrows to raise for the second time that week. 

Their last dance. He kept repeating it to himself to see if it would hurt less, like a child continually worrying their tongue over a loose tooth. Predict the pain to prevent the pain.

Her makeup was the same as it was those few weeks ago, but he saw something different in her eyes as she settled in front of him, still as a statue looking out to the dark dance floor. He tapped his foot, beating a rhythm into the ground. He didn’t get nervous, but here they were. Whatever happened now, he would keep this night forever. 

The lights changed, and their very last VT played to the small sea of familiar faces. 

_We’ve chosen the… you say it._

**No, what you talk about, you say it!**

_You say it-_

**You! You’re the-**

_It’s the Argentine Tango!_

**Of course it is, it had to be, it had to be.**

[cut to: training with voiceover]

 **For our favourite dance, we ‘ave chosen the Argentine Tango.**

_This dance was something special for me. It was the first time I felt like I really let go, and trusted myself enough to get lost in the moment, and just be out there on the floor with Giovanni._

Messages from her family shone on the screen, a flood of memories and snapshots of their journey together. She couldn’t see any of it for the tears, and the lump in her throat that had begun all the way down in her belly had risen up like an unstoppable beast. Two months ago she would have laughed, or scorned, said this was ridiculous. _All a bit bonkers, this, isn’t it?_ Not today though. Not now. Not with him standing right behind her, his hand laying across her belly button, their fingers entwined. It was true, what she said to herself last week. She needed that hand there. He nudged her ear with his nose, and the knot in her belly loosened a little. 

_\- the amount of detail you put into that -  
\- you create a fantastic atmosphere -  
\- made me rather hot under the collar -  
\- as your legs entwined and you almost kissed each other -  
\- I’m amazed actually. Fantastic -_

Time. She walked to the piano, sat. He stood in the middle of the floor and cast his eyes downwards. The moment he looked at her, she would forget where she was; it would be, as it needed to be, just the two of them, alone in their own room. She couldn’t have chosen a better last dance. 

The intensity of it - she wondered if anyone could see how it had changed. They had spoken about this. She had wanted to make sure they were on the same page before they finished this journey together, and she knew this Argentine would look different as a result. 

The audience would feel the intimacy of the story. What she would feel was the intimacy of the entire history of _them_. Their partnership - a concept so romantic, so old-fashioned, that she sometimes wondered how it existed in modern life. During the countless hours they’d spent in rehearsal, she had almost forgotten this was a dance. It had become a conversation without words, a piece of theatre with no use for language. What use were words when we had bodies? Yes, he had said things like _temptation_ and _seduction_ and _want_ and _need_ , and his tone of voice had sent a blush to her cheeks, but as soon as she’d begun learning the steps she had understood, even without him telling her, exactly what was happening. There had been no mention of characters. He had simply said _I_ and _you_ and _we_. 

How many times had she lost herself in front of him, and he in front of her? And how many times had they pulled each other back from the edge? 

A single violin. A red rose. A man, steady and strong, and the woman whose power over him cuts him to the bone. 

He pulls her close, removing any seed of doubt from her mind about why he came here tonight. She has already scorned him, and yet he won’t give up, will never give up. He sees in her eyes that she is keeping herself locked away, but as he gets closer, something in her melts and she falls forwards, into him. He will not kiss her; not yet. She lifts her leg to him, and he takes her in his arms, carrying her upstairs. Her fingers scrape sharply against his skin as she cups his face. 

He lays her on the bed and crawls on top of her, slowly threading his fingers through hers.

He growls, low enough so only she can hear it, and they travel about the floor, moving together with ease. She kicks, he kicks. She moves, he moves. Him, her, her, him. They pivot and swivel, figure of eight, figure of two. He spins her and pulls her low and close. Her legs part, sweeping out before coming back and meeting his. They slide together, up and down, up and down in a slow, perfect rhythm, eyes locked on each other. She feels him almost lose his balance; his breathing quickens, deepens. 

She blinks and pulls away, but he seizes her and pulls her underneath him. She has gotten stronger; she can straighten her leg this time, but he says no. _Bent one, we went for a bent one_. The judges don’t matter, not any more. It is just the two of them. _Alone in their own room_. 

She thinks he will kiss her, but instead he brings his face close enough that she feels his lip graze hers, the heat of his breath. Her senses are filled with his smell, the feel of his arms underneath her hands, the weight of him on top of her. If she wasn’t sure how he felt before, she is now. Here is the animal. She should be afraid, but she has never felt more sure.

She keeps her eyes on him, because he has asked her to, but him? He can barely look at her. It gives her a certain power. What is this? A man who can move the way he can move, who touches her the way he is touching her now, but who dares not look her in the eye? He is shaking. She thought she saw something furrow his brow, but it may have been her imagination. And was the hand on her back trembling? If it was, it must be intentional. Unlike her, he had complete control. He always did. 

Their next steps are quick and desperate. He growls again as the music peaks and their feet lock together, moving to a steady, circular rhythm. This was the moment she became lightheaded in rehearsals. Not the lift, not the lunge. This. 

She kicks his flexed legs, hard: once, then twice. She is testing him, and he lets her, but only for a moment before he picks her up and carries her away, claiming her. He will have this; he will show her what he wants, how he feels. It is what he came here to do. 

She kicks again and he responds, both of them moving faster and faster, the sweep sending his body arching backwards until he looks like a lion and a warrior and a ballerino all at once. They do not let each other go. He spins her around, finally drawing her to him. They both take the same breath, succumbing to each other. Spin, twist, dip, drop. He lays her down once again, and their lips finally meet. 

Last time, she had spent hours trying not to think about this moment before she found the courage to simply ask him. Days had passed with her wondering whether it was deliberate that he had come closer than he ever had in the rehearsal room, or whether he would even think it worthwhile discussing. Perhaps when he had paused, breathless, as the music crashed to a finish, it was not because he couldn’t wait to take her lips between his; perhaps he was simply lost in the moment, long gone from this earth. And yet there was still the possibility that he might have wanted her as much as she wanted him. He, too, might have been terrified at the prospect - terrified, yet desperate, all whilst wishing the moment would never arrive so that he could dream of it just a little while longer. 

It was as though she had finally understood what it meant to create art with your actual self. Your body is your instrument. What could possibly be more revealing or more intimate? He had shown her that there were more layers to dancing than she had ever imagined: the vulnerability, the trust, the false confidence, the actual confidence, the past self left behind and the new self just born, the way that they were both putting on a show and yet creating something completely authentic. Is this what all dancers did? She felt a groundswell of something for the man who was holding her in his arms; respect and pride and something like awe, and something else, too - something she was too scared to look directly at. _The man that this man is_. 

She realised that he had given her the greatest of gifts: he had allowed himself to be seen by her, and her alone. 

What was that proverb? The three faces of man. One face for the world, one for our friends, and one we keep for ourselves. Was love giving that third face away? Maybe so. But this could not be love - the word _love_ was not big enough to encompass this. 

They were still kneeling on the floor when the lights rose. This time, when his face brushed against hers, she did not look away, did not look down at his lips or try to stand too soon. She found his gaze and held it, because she wanted to give him something, anything, in return for all he had given her. 

He was staring back at her. He wouldn’t stop, and she thought even lovemaking didn’t go so far.

She would not move until he moved. And she knew that, even when they did stand, did walk away, that even when the night came to an end and another day followed, and another after that as it surely must, they would still be here, trapped under a spotlight in a shroud of bliss. In years to come, when she heard the swell of a violin or a rich, deep voice on the radio, she would be thrown back to this moment. It would remain, always, alive for her, trapped somewhere in the space between dreaming and waking.

\- - - - - - 

‘And now is the moment we have all been waiting for.’

‘Who will be the winners of Strictly Come Dancing 2020?’ 

They stood in line, the four finalists and their partners. The way she saw it, it wasn’t four, it was eight. It wasn’t just about the celebrities. This was another revelation in an experience that had turned out to be full of them. Revelation upon revelation, realisations one after the other, about herself, about dance, about people, love, dedication, life.

His hip was warm under her hand, her fingers soft in the little nook they always found of their own accord where there was a little bit of flesh parading as muscle that gave way to his hip bone. She remembered tickling him the first time she found it, and he sprang away. Since then, whenever she had found cause to rest her hand there, she had felt him chuckle under his breath. To better resist her teasing grin, he had taken to shimmying away, singing. _I don’t think you’re ready for this jelly_. 

That’s what she would miss the most. Not just learning to dance, not just routines, not just the rush of performance on live telly. Not the flirtation, or the spark of romance, the thrilling feeling when someone throws a ball back into your court. It was the feeling of someone who made you laugh and swell with warmth, whether teacher, friend, or lover, tucked so closely into your side that you knew they were trying to meld themselves with your very being. Yes, there were four finalists, but the teachers, the partnerships? They were what made this thing special, what made it work. So it was eight, really. Eight finalists. 

Or maybe not. Maybe it was seven. Seven, because, as he had said to her before - a few times in an abstract way, and only an hour ago in a moment of honest undoing - they were not two separate people dancing together. _When we dance… I do not know the difference between me and you_. 

Backstage after their Argentine, he had barely been able to speak. They clutched each other, and had to be coerced into the interview booth. She laughed through tears, but perhaps that was a mask she was used to wearing. He did not act so well. 

She glanced round at the other finalists. Here was that music again, full of tension. For weeks, she had felt him nod and fidget beside her as they prayed to hear their names called out. Of course he would manage to find the rhythm in a song he despised. _Of course he would_. 

This time though, he was still. She looked up and saw his face, soft and calm. He looked down at her and his face softened more. She sighed. She had been sighing a lot lately. Her breath rippled against his shirt as he nuzzled her hair. No one was looking, were they? Everyone was focused on who would win. She didn’t think it would be them, and neither did she care. 

She had danced tonight without anything like a score crossing her mind. There sat the trophy on the plinth in front of them, its metal and plastic shining. He wanted it so much. She knew it wasn’t just metal and plastic to him. But he was still, like her, coming to terms with the fact that sometimes, we do not want the things we think we want, are not the people we think we are. 

What do we do with this information? She didn’t know. But to just be here, with him, before it was all ripped away… yes. To just be here. For now, that was enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There will be just one more chapter after this, I think...


	8. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I hope this has been as satisfying for you all to read as it has been for me to write. A catharsis of sorts... I tried to keep the characterisation as realistic as possible, but also allow you all to read between the lines and add your own interpretation, which is such a delicious thing to do when reading. 
> 
> Love and thanks to all x

_A change is gonna come…_

Sam Cooke’s soulful voice floated on the breeze. The days were still growing, and the weather was still warming, and the world was slowly ticking back to life. 

Much had changed. Plans were in the works; possibility and hope glowed in the air. He lay under a blue sky with his bare feet catching the grass, a radio just out of reach. Not-so-distant laughter and yelps of delight. 

He remembered when parks were places for picnics with whole gatherings of friends, unabashed and intimate, sharing food and space; when couples walked hand-in-hand, not needing to dodge other couples as they passed. _Paula and Patrick_. Were they enjoying the sun? Sat with their coffee and croissants at their usual table under the trees? 

The song changed. The DJ was choosing well today, he smiled, and sang along under his breath. 

_I know you haven’t made your mind up yet, but I would never do you wrong  
I’ve known it from the moment that we met…_

Life still wasn’t back to normal, but he had understood: this was the new normal. Nothing could ever go back to the way it was, not after all that had happened. The world was gearing up, again, for the show - how quickly a year passes, how fast time seems to flow when you’ve seen a fair few years already. He was no longer the young man who had caught a plane to London with barely a suitcase. 

Something really strange had happened - they had become part of a cultural history. He remembered her saying that this would be a fascinating time to study in the future. _Imagine the essays and college classes in fifty, sixty, seventy years time._ He got the impression she almost wished they could be around to see it. 

There were tepid plans to go ahead, but he was still awaiting details. They had dispensed with bubbles; he would be able to see her. The pros would still gather together for what had become a beloved summer retreat, a place to work hard and play hard before the real competition began, and then: autumn. A longer run - he was itching to test his stamina - and a chance to claim the Halloween crown once more. She was more than a little jealous, and he loved it. _We still dance together. Don’t you remember our Tango?_

He hummed at the memory. He’d worked some magic, pulled together a crew and a space and pinged Vicky Gill an extremely cheeky email. The video went online a week later. One week to learn; he kept the same rules as the show. _If we going to do this, we do it properly. You don’t wake up at 3am anymore, there’s no excuse._ The shade she had thrown back still made him grin. 

Black lace for her, black satin for him. He had called her his princess once, but this time, he called her his queen. _You are a dragon_. And once again, he thrilled at her transformation. Thick black braids with shimmering beads; glittering green scales woven into the dress, lace and silk and heaviness that swayed and flowed by her feet. _Hair and makeup is a remarkable thing, isn’t it?_

And the training - she had blamed the warmer weather for how sweaty they got. How could such a staccato dance be so sensual? At the start, prowling through the darkness. He grabbed her wrists, leaving marks, staring into her eyes as he forced her hands away. It was a battle, bodies aching to touch and to hold while resisting with every fibre of their being. She had been working hard. She no longer doubted what her body could do, or what he could do with it. _Straighten the leg_. And she did. 

And that frame… still the best in the business. He shook his head. The memory is still fresh, a dark room filled with smoke and spotlights... 

He swings her and dips her, harsh clean lines, power running through every muscle. He growls. As the music flows, he spins her into him and closes his fingers around her waist, his lips barely a breath away from hers, their foreheads touching. He had thought the intensity might have faded by now, but he was wrong. 

At the end, she surprised him. She spun away and he pulled her back as they planned, her leg sliding under his in a beautiful silhouette, but just as he leaned down towards her to finish the dance, she had pushed him back up and forced him to the floor. He didn’t know how to hide the look of surprise on his face. He never knows how to hide, not with her.

She had burst into laughter. He got up and walked right to her. _Well, we definitely are going to use that_. Had she just choreographed a move? He felt a small swell of pride, still looking at her with unmasked disbelief. 

They did it again and again. _Push me as a dancer, and I fall as a dancer_. She twirled beautifully, powerfully, and he landed with hands to the floor, gazing upwards as she menaced over him like a goddess of the baroque. 

The grass tickled his feet as he smiled at the memory, a pool of feeling kindling just below his stomach. He stroked a blade of grass between his fingers and breathed in the early summer air. That email in his inbox was still awaiting his attention. Something about Christmas, about how the nation needed an extra boost after the year they’d had, after the success of the previous season. Plans for an Easter special had collapsed - not enough time - but they were determined to make something work this winter. Until then, there was still the whole summer to enjoy.

_The winds of change are blowing wild and free  
You ain’t seen nothing like me yet…_

He knew she looked back on those days and regretted none of it, not the exhaustion, not the aching, not the pain in her feet or in her heart, nor the doubt in her mind. They still couldn’t go anywhere. He hadn’t seen his family in so long. He tried not to think of it, but sometimes, he had caught her crying when she thought he couldn’t see. That was just like her - always feeling the pain of others as if it was her own. 

He pushed his phone further away and cracked his eyes open to look at the heavenly blue above. That could be anywhere, that sky. London, Lancashire, a quiet spot on the rocks by the Sicilian sea… 

_There is a place I want to show you_. 

One day. One day, soon.


End file.
